As we have been teasing for months, huge changes are afoot at HVACR Business Magazine. As with any major change, the journey has not been without its obstacles, delays, and surprises. But as a team, we have been determined to see it through so that we can better serve our readership and deliver more for all our loyal subscribers. 

Time to Get Down to Brass Tacks in 2022

2022 has been the year of upgrades and upheaval at HVACR Business Magazine. The first and most obvious was the onboarding of a new managing editor in January – uh, that would be me. That decision, in and of itself, might have been enough to disrupt a team that has been functioning so successfully as a collective for so many years – especially coming out of the pandemic. But our publisher, Terry Tanker, was honest about the need for all of us to move forward with progress and positive change in mind. And he expressed with full clarity, that there was more to come. He explained that we need to do more to serve our readership – loosely translated…that meant even more changes. “Buckle up,” we thought, “it could get bumpy.”

Putting Words into Action 

Words are easy for an editor. Give me the topic, and I will write about it. Putting words into action can be more challenging, especially when I have been promising HVACR Business Magazine readers – often shouting it high up from my editorial pulpit for months – that big changes are coming. But I love a good challenge and couldn’t wait to get to work. So, I joined this incredible team of professionals and tried to listen and learn all the idiosyncratic things I didn’t know about the HVACR industry and its owners. It’s an incredibly diverse but consistent industry and very close-knit, I discovered.

Then…we all went to work. 

First, there were a series of discussions and meetings… and more meetings. All of them aimed at figuring out what needed improvement. We asked a slew of questions, both of ourselves, and some of our most loyal readers. These questions included… Are we moving in a direction that serves the HVACR readership and its subscribers and advertisers? What is and isn’t working? What do our readers love about the magazine? What works well for our advertisers, our owners, and CEOS? All good questions, but the one “necessity” that kept sticking out like an albatross – and the most monumental undertaking because it would be the one that needed to happen first to support all the other changes – was the need for a new website. We would need to completely rebuild the website to serve our subscribers better, deliver more when it comes to products and information, and serve the companies who advertise with us currently. With our noses to the grindstone, we went back to work, this time armed with a little more clarity than when we started. With a clear objective, we diligently pressed forward to make the new site happen and achieve our goal of “better” and hopefully “best”. 

The Home Page – More of What You Love Only Better

While you can’t see these changes yet, we wanted to share with you a little of the behind-the-scenes. The website will launch on September 1st, and I can say with complete confidence, that it is going to be a giant upgrade. To be clear – the use of the phrase “giant upgrade” is not even one bit of hyperbole. It may be an understatement – but I’ll let you all weigh in when it launches. However, I can say from where I sit, you can be assured you were all a big part of the entire process. We brainstormed to figure out what you consistently applaud on the home page. All the things you love are still there, only better and bolder. The layout is better, navigation is easier, and all your favorite items are prominently featured. As for what was missing, we brainstormed for many weeks. The results – all of it, both the favorite mainstays and the missing components, made the cut based on your feedback. If it was a favorite, we kept it and made it better. If it was missing, we added it.

A Design with HVACR Readers in Mind

Next, we asked many of you to answer some questions about your preferences for our forthcoming upgrade. We poured through endless analytics, designing, and redesigning pages as we went, to get it right. We have delivered every ounce of this site based on your direct feedback and maybe a tiny bit of our ingenuity sprinkled in there as well. All self-adulation aside, any idea or change that we kept “in” was always with you in mind. Each team member, at every brainstorming session, asked him or herself – does that serve our readers? We sifted through reams of data to determine what you deem our most popular stories. We determined what are the most popular columns based on your visits. Search tools that were missing before are now available, and product pages that weren’t as highlighted as they could have been, are now prominently and beautifully displayed. And of course, the most popular content will now be featured up front on the home page with even more of what you love.

Products & Featured Brands 

A truly exciting addition for our HVACR owners and advertisers will be a product page that rivals anything available in the HVACR editorial industry. You will have the incredible opportunity to not only run ads but also to highlight your brand to the most targeted readership in the industry. Feel free to inquire about this new update at any time. We’d be happy to explain the imminent change and how you can benefit. You will want to be a part of this exclusive list of featured brands. So, don’t wait for the launch – email us now. We will be happy to walk you through it.

As you can see, there are a ton of good updates on the way. We are sure you will feel the benefits at and for your company and even for your loyal customer base.

As we near the end of this project, our site redesign, we are excited about the new bells and whistles. Is it beautifully designed? Yes, it is. Is it more technically proficient? Of course – it’s a behemoth upgrade. But the thing about which we are most proud is this – the site was designed for you and by you. We would never have been able to call it complete or “better” (and hopefully the best the industry offers) if you hadn’t been so loyal and honest with us throughout the years. 

More Changes on the Way…

As we embark on this next phase, there is even more in the works. We plan to have a more consistent social media presence. You may have noticed we now have an Instagram page, and we will be posting much more regularly on all the platforms. Also, we will be delivering more polls and surveys to give our readers a chance to weigh in. And, we will be upgrading our industry newsletters, making them more topic-specific, and delivering them more often to keep you updated on all the goings-on in the industry. All of this, beyond being about big change, means you will get more of the stuff you like. For HVACR Business Magazine, it translates to consistently enhancing our readership. That translates to more traffic and more incentive for businesses to advertise to our unique subscribers.  We are leaning into our success and getting better. Let’s face it, we didn’t survive the recent economic downturns and a pandemic for no reason. We are and have always been the most targeted magazine serving the HVACR industry in the editorial publishing universe. And we didn’t emerge successful by being complacent.  No organization gets better without being ready for change. But no entity can decide what needs improving without listening to its most loyal consumers. We listened. We listened, and we are ready to deliver. Stay tuned, it’s about to get exciting. And, by the way…we hope it’s not just better. Our goal in 2023, is to be the best we have ever been!